FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Saudi War Has Pushed Yemen ‘Deep into the Abyss’ Charges UNICEF Director

July 4, 2018 (EIRNS)—The genocidal war on Yemen has already pushed a nation on the brink “deep into the abyss,” warned UNICEF Executive Director Henriette Fore in a briefing to reporters in Geneva on July 3.

“Social services are barely functional. The economy is in ruins. Prices have soared. Hospitals have been damaged. Schools have turned into shelters or have been taken over by armed groups,”

she said in describing her trip to Aden and the capital Sana’a, according to a UN press release. She said that children were routinely “taken out of school, forced to fight, married off, hungry, dying from preventable diseases,” and stating further that “today, 11 million children in Yemen—more than the entire population of Switzerland—need help getting food, treatment, education, water, and sanitation.”

Since 2015, health facilities have been cut by more than half; 1,500 schools have been damaged by airstrikes and shelling; and at least 2,200 children have been killed, with around 3,400 injured, according to the UNICEF chief. “These are only numbers we have been able to verify. The actual figures could be even higher,” she said. “There is no justification for this carnage.”

There are efforts in the U.S. Congress to cut the flow of weapons and munitions to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., the two Gulf states leading the genocidal war against Yemen. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, is holding back support for the sale of tens of thousands of U.S. precision-guided munition kits to Saudi Arabia, until the Trump Administration justifies U.S. military aid to Riyadh’s campaign in Yemen, Defense News reported yesterday.

Menendez sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis last week, in which he said that the administration must provide more public testimony and private briefings to lawmakers before he can be satisfied.

“I am not confident that these weapons sales will be utilized strategically as effective leverage to push back on Iran’s actions in Yemen, assist our partners in their own self-defense, or drive the parties toward a political settlement that saves lives and mitigates human suffering,”

Menendez said in his June 28 letter. “Even worse, I am concerned that our policies are enabling the perpetuation of a conflict that has resulted in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” he said.